Night Terrors
by BrendanBoman
Summary: King Julien decides to camp with his brave and loyal people and thought that it would be a good idea. But then it turns out to be a bad. Or is it? The pagebreaks are decorated with lyrics from Michael Jackson's Thriller.


_It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark…_

* * *

It is ten o'clock in the middle of the night, the moon which is the only source of light for Madagascar when the sun has set, is currently covered by a thick layer of clouds, as darkness spreads across the land.

"Come on, King Julien. I thought you wanted to camp outside with the others?" Maurice said as he took King Julien's bag filled with all kinds of stuff King Julien wants to bring to the camp.

"In a moment Maurice," King Julien said, fixing his crown in front of the mirror in his room. "I'm preparing myself for the camp. Just like in the old days. Done!" King Julien marched out of his room as Maurice carried both, his and his King's bag down the baobab tree where all twelve people who wants to join the royal camp including King Julien and Maurice has gathered.

"Is everybody here?" Clover, who wasn't really happy about the King's decision to camp in the middle of the forest, asked. "Good. Now remember, do not run away from our group and stick together until we reach the campsite. If you get lost, you shall probably be eaten by the fossas. So if you don't want to die,-"

"Yeah, we get it Clover," King Julien said. "Fossas are dangerous. Now let's get this party started y'all!"

"Your majesty, this is not a party," Maurice said.

"It isn't?" King Julien asked in surprise, quite sad that it isn't a party.

"Nevermind," Maurice said as the group of twelve lemurs led by Clover went away from the kingdom to search for the place Clover has chosen for the campsite.

* * *

 _Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand_

 _Creatures crawl in search of blood, to terrorize y'all's neighbourhood_

* * *

"Alright, we have arrived at our campsite," Clover announced as she ordered Ted to light up the fire and Horst, Maurice and Pancho to set up the tents. King Julien sat on one of the logs as he looked excitedly at the campfire, wondering what camp is like. Everything was prepared in the morning, the logs, the firewood, the tents and all kinds of things.

After a few minutes, things are finally done as Mort took his place beside King Julien before King Julien took the surprised Maurice and placed him in between him and Mort much to Mort's disappointment. Everyone sat there around the campfire, staring at the fire blankly for a few minutes before Willie spoke up.

"What are we doing here staring at the fire?" Willie asked.

"Well obviously, Willie, we are camping," King Julien said. "Duh."

"I know right?" Mort said.

"What Willie means is what do we do when we camp," Maurice said.

"Oh. Well don't ask me Maurice, you should know. It is your idea anyway," King Julien said.

"It wasn't my idea, _you_ were the one who said that you wanted to camp!" Maurice said. "Anyway, who's hungry?"

Everyone was, and so Maurice took all sorts of fruits which was packed earlier in the morning as everyone took their sticks to roast the fruits using the campfire.

While that, Clover was talking about how dangerous it is to sit in the middle of the forest at night.

"And you know that in the dark, you cannot see what's around you without light. But the foosas do not need their eyes to know where the lemurs are, for they have sensitive nose. Once they know that you are here, they shall eat you!" Clover explained.

"Yeah, yeah Clover," King Julien said getting bored of Clover's security briefs. "We all get it already. Now what do we do other than eating during camp?" King Julien asked excitedly.

"Well, we tell scary stories." Maurice told as everyone looked at each other before Willie stood up.

"I heard that somewhere in the forests of Madagascar, there's an extremely large reptile who eats lemurs and cakes called, the Mega Gecko!"

"I thought that everyone knew that this whole thing was made up?" Maurice said to King Julien.

"Yeah! That's how amazing I am!" King Julien said. "They still love the story even though they know it is fake!"

"It has big red eyes, breathes fire, and only comes out at night," Willie said before Ted intersects.

"I heard that it's even bigger than a really big stuff and we need twelve eyes to see it!" Ted said as everyone gasped.

"Really?" Maurice said with a sigh as he saw everyone (except Clover) including King Julien was so surprised about the mega gecko.

"That's not scary yet," Horst said after taking a sip of his beverage. "I heard about a monster called the Beveragasaurus!"

"What is a Beveragasaurus actually?" Maurice asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a very huge monster who walks around the forest, eating whatever that's in his way." Horst said. "And the worst part is, it steals every single beverage it sees, drinking it and also eating the owner of the beverage!"

"Oh boy," Maurice said as things turns weirder every second.

"I heard that there's another beast in this forest called the Tickle Monster! This monster has three heads and all of them are huge! It comes to you to disturb you so that you will miss your ride. Whether it is a train, a ship or even a spaceship."

Clover decides to join in as she stood up and began to tell a story.

"Well I know a story too." Clover started. "Grandma Rose once told me that somewhere in this forest lies a small insect living in a tree. But this insect is not like a normal insect, as it can grow as big as a mountain and walks in the middle of the night on two legs, looking for lemurs to eat. This insect can grow that big after its family was killed by King Julien the Terrible. It seeks for revenge on the lemur species and met a witch somewhere in the forest, who casts a spell on the insect to give him the ability to grow as big as he wants to be. Every night, it looks for any lemur in the forest. It sucks the lemur with its gigantic mouth and just swallow the victim, leaving the lemur to die of suffocation. You can tell that the beast is nearby when the ground shakes, the trees start to tumble down and the whole place becomes darker. That is when-" Clover's story was stopped by a loud sound of a stomp as the ground shook, the trees start to fall down, and the clouds cover the moon once more, causing the scene to become dark again. The campfire suddenly went out as they hear the sound of the stomps coming closer and closer to them all.

"Everybody run!" Clover shouted as everyone ran away as fast as they could.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Willie shouted as the group of campers ran away from the supposedly giant insect.

As they ran, Clover made sure that everyone's safe, and that's when she realised that something was wrong.

"Mort's gone!" Clover shouted as she ran. "He was with us during the camp! He must have been left behind!"

"Let's not bother about Mort," King Julien said. "You all should care about me! I'm the king!"

"Everyone is important in this condition, your majesty!" Clover said as they kept on running.

Ted accidentally tripped on a rock as he fell down on to the ground.

"Oopsy!" he said before he began to pick himself up. But it was all useless as he soon fell again as he was sucked by something that is unseen.

"Ted!" Dorothy shouted.

They ran for a few more minutes in the deep, uncharted forest, before Clover found a way to escape from the monster temporarily.

"Over here!" she called, pointing at an abandoned hut in the middle of the forest as they all ran towards the hut as Maurice quickly lock the door, hoping that the monster didn't see them running away. They stood in there, in the dark, and all they can see is black except for an area around only the window where a dim light shone through it, revealing an empty, old wooden rocking chair. No one dares to sit on it, and so they all sat on the floor, not really sure where they are as Clover began to plan on how to get out as they hear the loud stomps of the monster outside.

* * *

 _They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side_

* * *

They were practically locked inside the hut, and all of Clover's plans were useless. It's been nearly ten minutes since they found the hut. They could still hear some roar-ish sounds outside as the ground was still shaking, though not as shaky as before.

"Alright, new plan," Clover said suddenly. "We'll climb out that window and creep out slowly, and head back home. We should be safe if we're careful and quiet enough. Come on!"

Everyone except Clover didn't want to even go near the creepy looking chair, as it stood there, slightly rocking due to the wind which blew through the open window. So they didn't move an inch and stayed there as if nothing happened.

"Come on," Clover said, wondering why everyone didn't follow her. She could see things faintly there and saw everyone standing idly before she wondered if they really are the lemurs who came with her. So slowly, Clover walked towards one of the supposed lemurs and tried to poke it.

"Ow!" King Julien shouted. "What was that for?"

"Oh, sorry, your majesty," Clover said, surprised that it was a real lemur since she was expecting it to be some sort of ghost from the abandoned hut or something. "I was just making sure that you were a real lemur."

"You mean that you think I'm a robot or something?" King Julien asked, rubbing his arm before the stomps came closer and the wall of the hut suddenly broke, as they can faintly see the reddish monster before they all ran away from it while shouting.

"Why can't we just head back to our kingdom now, Clover!?" King Julien asked as he fixed his crown which was about to fall as he ran.

"We can't! It's too dangerous and can endanger the whole kingdom!" Clover explained before they reached the end of the forest and were trapped between the unknown monster, and a tall mountain. "We need to climb up this mountain!"

"What do we do after that?" Maurice asked as they all began to climb up the steep mountain as the monster was still in the forest obviously chasing them as it got closer.

"No time for questions! Climb up quick!" Clover shouted as they struggled their way out, trying their best to not look back just in case they fall.

* * *

 _You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination_

 _But all the while you hear the creature creepin'up behind_

 _You're out of time_

* * *

They're about to reach the top when they hear the last sound of a tumbling tree, before they hear some kind of a wooshing sound. Wondering what it is, Willie looked behind him before he accidentally let go of the mountain, scared of both, what he saw and also the height, as he fell down screaming. The only thing they heard after the scream was a loud sound of 'CLONG!' as Willie probably fell on some metal piece on the ground. The group of now nine people reached the end of the steep rocky ramp and began to run on the flat surface on top of the mountain while panting after climbing a tall mountain.

"This way!" Clover said, forgetting that she was actually going the wrong way. They ran for quite a while before Clover stopped. "Wait, this path leads to the Really Bad Spot!" she said, also realising the fact that they cannot turn back.

"Then we'll just hide there!" King Julien said he prepared to run again.

"But there isn-" Clover said when she was stopped by King Julien.

"Just follow me!" King Julien said as he grabbed Clover's arm and pulled her with him as the team resumed running there before stopping at the cliff.

"What? There isn't any hiding place here?" King Julien said as all he could see was small rocks which aren't big enough to hide the whole team.

"I did try to tell you just now," Clover said.

"Oh," King Julien said before realising that they were trapped. "Oooh…"

The supposed monster came closer, and closer as everyone hid behind Clover who was quite scared too.

They heard it climb the small steps towards the end of the mountain, as the stomps became louder, and the ground shook harder. They were only waiting for the monster to reveal itself and probably eat all of them at once as they began to see the red top of its head, then a bit of its eyes. Soon, the monster revealed itself, and everybody's jaws dropped when they saw that it was actually Mort's old Larry the Volcano God suit with Mort in it.

"Hi everybody!" Mort said, giggling as he waved to all of them.

"Mort!?" everybody said.

"What?" Mort asked, wondering why everyone was so surprised before Ted and Willie climbed up the mountain.

"Why do you keep running away from us?" Willie asked.

"Ted! Willie!" King Julien said. "We thought you were eaten by the monster!"

"There's no monster," Ted said. "I just fell down and Mort picked me up. Then Willie fell down the mountain and Mort caught him. No one's injured."

"So we were all running away from Mort all this while?" Clover said, disappointed by the fact that it wasn't a monster that she can beat up.

"Well, I think so," Ted said, scratching the back of his neck.

The team returned back to their campsite, relieved that it was all just a misunderstanding as their camp was resumed with some more scary stories and some more security briefings.

* * *

 _Cause this is thriller, thriller night_

 _So let me hold you tight and share a killer, diller, chiller_

 _Thriller here tonight…_


End file.
